[SCD] Thrasios, Triton Hero

onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
If your games involve people spending removal on 2 Mana commanders except to stop a combo I don't think our games have enough in common to compare.
My games vary greatly game to game because I play online.

I can say that I see a LOT less Thrasios than Golos. If I jump in a cEDH game, there's a ton of Thrasios, and he doesn't eat removal because it's cEDH and there's a constant threat of someone's combo coming online that you save your removal for.

When it comes to 75 percent games, you are much less likely to see an early combo so spending a kill spell against Thrasios is feasible. The table just needs to tempo him back a few turns until he starts becoming collateral damage to wraths. If what your playing regularly demands you need to stop a combo before turn 4, you aren't playing what most people would consider 75 percent. There is a higher power level that isn't quite cEDH, and every once in awhile a thread pops up debating what to call that. I can see Thrasios being somewhat problematic there, but that's also a zone that's hard to maintain for long. Either the temptation to streamline the decks just a bit more wins out and it transitions to cEDH, or the group reins it back and it settles into a more normal 75 percent.

I also tend to run a lot of spot removal and answers in my decks, so it's not uncommon for me to have a spare to throw at Thrasios early to keep it's pilot off tempo. Ignoring Thrasios will eventually get you buried under card advantage, or they'll drop something that combos with him. But from my experience killing him a couple times keeps him in line. Sometimes they get lucky and always hit a land with him and ramp and it's much harder to keep him sidelined, sometimes they spend 4 Mana to draw a card then he eats removal, and the next time they cast him he gets swept up in a wrath, then he costs 6.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I think you said all that needs to be said by saying the table needs to tempo him back. To beat most thrasios decks you need to act like they're your only opponent a large percentage of the time. That's problematic in a nutshell.

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Post by BounceBurnBuff » 3 years ago

All you've said about Thrasios dominating the higher you go, providing insane advantage and rarely seeing any play lower down, applies to Urza: A far more problematic commander. When your basic function allows you to turn off something as universally fun as a Howling Mine, and that's one of the best case scenarios, there's little to no chance a 4 mana ramp OR draw sink is going to appear like much of an issue. Hell, Urza is one of the few non green commanders that can often just outramp Green when he drops.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

BounceBurnBuff wrote:
3 years ago
All you've said about Thrasios dominating the higher you go, providing insane advantage and rarely seeing any play lower down, applies to Urza: A far more problematic commander. When your basic function allows you to turn off something as universally fun as a Howling Mine, and that's one of the best case scenarios, there's little to no chance a 4 mana ramp OR draw sink is going to appear like much of an issue. Hell, Urza is one of the few non green commanders that can often just outramp Green when he drops.
It sadly applies to a ton of commanders printed in the modern era.

Urza "benefits" from his synergy packages generally being so distasteful that it limits his audience. He also struggles with being mono blue limiting the budget approaches.

But if someone started an scd on urza I could personally be convinced of a ban pretty easily. He's basically the definition of toxic to play against. Creates huge ramp and card advantage while needing to be removed multiple times as a whole table effort.

I don't understand why anyone wants to play these guys outside of cedh. Maybe if your entire group plays them I guess?

But it's not really like you're playing the same game anymore when your commander brings everything other decks have to work for to the table (ramp, combo and draw)..

For years and years it was basically pick one of the three and then your commander does that and frees up some card slots for creativity. Now we are spoiled with commanders doing 2 or sometimes all 3 things.

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

That sounds like less of an issue for the ban list and more an issue of just... not liking the new commanders? The rules committee has been pretty solidly on the side of "smaller ban list is better", so you're not going to see eye to eye with them if you're wanting to ban every commander that ramps and draws.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
That sounds like less of an issue for the ban list and more an issue of just... not liking the new commanders? The rules committee has been pretty solidly on the side of "smaller ban list is better", so you're not going to see eye to eye with them if you're wanting to ban every commander that ramps and draws.
If I were to articulate a policy I think "ramps, draws, and is an infinite combo piece" would be one of the potential warning signs that a commander could warrant a ban. I don't think you could simply wave a magic wand and make a one-size-fits-all rule. The format isn't that simple for sure.

But cards like Thrasios, new Sisay, Urza, and Golos are ones I think deserve a but more of a look because of what they do to the format ultimately by putting ramp, draw, and combo on a 4+ color package that is enticing to a fairly wide audience of commander players in design.

Thrasios has been around for years so it's not like this is explicitly a new thing - but it is true that mana sink commanders are a relatively new design paradigm.

If you popped Thrasios and Golos, I think it would make a pretty big statement that the things these commanders bring to the format are net negative.

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
That sounds like less of an issue for the ban list and more an issue of just... not liking the new commanders? The rules committee has been pretty solidly on the side of "smaller ban list is better", so you're not going to see eye to eye with them if you're wanting to ban every commander that ramps and draws.
If I were to articulate a policy I think "ramps, draws, and is an infinite combo piece" would be one of the potential warning signs that a commander could warrant a ban. I don't think you could simply wave a magic wand and make a one-size-fits-all rule. The format isn't that simple for sure.

But cards like Thrasios, new Sisay, Urza, and Golos are ones I think deserve a but more of a look because of what they do to the format ultimately by putting ramp, draw, and combo on a 4+ color package that is enticing to a fairly wide audience of commander players in design.

Thrasios has been around for years so it's not like this is explicitly a new thing - but it is true that mana sink commanders are a relatively new design paradigm.

If you popped Thrasios and Golos, I think it would make a pretty big statement that the things these commanders bring to the format are net negative.
To me then, it seems like you're making the wrong argument, or at least not the full argument you should be making. If your position is that these types of commanders are a problem as a whole, and that the worst offenders need to be banned as a statement about that whole, then that's a very different argument than "this specific card is overpowered".

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

I think that Golos is the more important statement honestly. New Sisay requires more dedication to break, but is close. Thrasios is better the higher power level you go, but can pretty easily be good but fair. Golos is very attractive at all power levels and I almost never see a game with Golos where the game isn't entirely about Golos, whatever the power level. What he does is, on its own, too much. He violates most of the red flags for banning without any help. Thrasios really doesn't. I'm not saying that you can't easily build Thrasios to be every bit as much a problem as Golos, what I'm saying is that you CAN easily build Thrasios fairly, but in order to make Golos fair you pretty much have to just not play all five colors in your Mana sources so you can't activate his ability, or straight up commit to pretending like his ability doesn't exist.

Pokken, you've repeatedly spoken about how our experience with Thrasios differs, and that you think it's because I'm not playing at as high a power level as you, but that's a point in my favor. That we CAN have different experiences against Thrasios, and that you can look to meta power level as an explanation, proves that Thrasios isn't so much the issue as the way the deck is built. Because we share the same experience with Golos, and that means that my experience with him across power levels matches yours at high power levels, meaning that based on our experiences Golos is a far more problematic card than Thrasios.


As a side note on Urza: I have a very fair Urza deck that I'd say is pretty casual. I took the absurd deck building restriction of only using cards from Antiquities, Urza Block, and Invasion Block, plus any card that directly references Urza. Because of Urza (and a few absurd cards from those sets) the deck still hits a medium power level. I can't imagine building him fairly with reasonable deck restrictions while sticking to an artifact theme.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
That we CAN have different experiences against Thrasios, and that you can look to meta power level as an explanation, proves that Thrasios isn't so much the issue as the way the deck is built. Because we share the same experience with Golos, and that means that my experience with him across power levels matches yours at high power levels, meaning that based on our experiences Golos is a far more problematic card than Thrasios.
Golos is definitely more problematic than Thrasios across more of the spectrum of power levels. I'll agree with that. But Thrasios is a far more acute problem in the upper levels of power (in my opinion). The games where Thrasios is a problem are because the power level is high enough that you can't just spend your removal on setting the Thrasios player back 2 mana because everyone is a problem and many of their cards are problems.

I don't think that being able to have different experiences against a general necessarily means anything. See Leovold; lots of low power players were quite annoyed about the ban because it killed their morph deck or whatever that didn't do the wheel things. Plenty of people argued from the position of "If you don't try to break him, Leovold is fine." I think you and Cryo were actually in that camp (though you came down on banning it was "acceptable losses" of the elves decks which are the same as the "good experience thrasios" decks).

(https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the ... y-of-trest)

Obviously, Leovold creates *much worse* experiences than Thrasios, and that's what put him over the top is just how bad the experience is - losing to Thrasios is just like losing to someone who cast Rhystic Study early. So not that bad just annoying.

If I had to choose I think I'd like to see Golos go first, but I think popping both of them would be a good choice.
Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
If your position is that these types of commanders are a problem as a whole, and that the worst offenders need to be banned as a statement about that whole, then that's a very different argument than "this specific card is overpowered".
I clearly do not have a firm position I am sticking to here. This is a discussion. And it's not like we're so full of people posting we have to militantly make SCD threads not go on tangents.

I think Thrasios and Golos are the absolute worst of the "ramp draw combo" commanders, and as the discussion has evolved I am seeing more and more that there is a connection there.

Thrasios, specifically, is *the most powerful commander in magic hands down* so he's definitely overpowered. That's another part of it :)

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

My point was not "this SCD can't have tangents", but instead "Your argument would be stronger if you created a firm position". While I don't personally agree with either position, I can at least see more of the merits to an argument that takes on Golos/Thrasios+others as a whole, rather than trying to argue that they're individually overpowered. Plenty of individually overpowered things exist and have existed in commander for a long time without needing to be banned, where the argument that Golos et al cause problems for the game and meta structurally is at least novel, and seems more persuasive to me.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
My point was not "this SCD can't have tangents", but instead "Your argument would be stronger if you created a firm position".
It's specific card discussion not specific card dissertation, I'm not at that point yet :)
Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
Plenty of individually overpowered things exist and have existed in commander for a long time without needing to be banned
While it's true that lots of individually powerful things exist in commander it's also true that lots of individually powerful things have been banned in commander because with the power comes other problematic things -- ubiquity, feeling like you need those cards to compete, centralizing, repetitive gameplay, etc. etc.

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is (as onering rightly points out) really problematic along a lot of those axes - it's highly played, it drives down diversity by being the best at too many things, it's extremely centralizing, and it leads to repetitive gameplay, and so on.

But it's really only problematic because it's high powered.

Whether Thrasios, Triton Hero is problematic in enough areas is certainly up for discussion - lots of folks think it isn't, which is fine. You are pushing in the right direction though which is that power level is rarely the proximal cause of banning.

In that we can consider Thrasios on all the different categories of problematic:
(High level)
1. Extreme consistency
2. Ubiquity
3. Ability to restrict others' opportunities

(detailed)
1. Cause severe resource imbalances
2. Allow players to win out of nowhere
3. Prevent players from contributing to the game in a meaningful way.
4. Cause other players to feel they must play certain cards, even though they are also problematic.
5. Are very difficult for other players to interact with, especially if doing so requires dedicated, narrow responses when deck-building.
6. Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or the specific rules of Commander.
7. Lead to repetitive game play.
Note that ranking commanders on these is very difficult because ubiquity doesn't mean the same thing with a commander as it does with say, Sol ring what can be in every deck.

High level
1. Extreme consistency - Having very cheap ca, ramp and combo piece in the zone is bad news. He's at least a 7/10 on this front for me, lessened because he does require some synergy pieces but they're fairly easy to find and the payoff is high.

2. Ubiquity - He's the 5th most played commander, so pretty high for me. I'm not sure I could give an of 10 ranking for this but if you say the most played commander is 10/10, Thrasios is a 7/10.

3. Restricting others' opportunities - 0/10, maybe 1/10 if you want to say taxing removal by being so cheap I guess? I dunno. Doesn't really do any of the stuff like Leovold, Braids or Erayo the generals that are on there for that.

Low level
1. Resource imbalances - maybe 5/10 there, he's not as explosive as Golos. The 10/10 commander for this imho is Griselbrand and the 8/10 is Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary maybe? He draws a lot of cards but it takes work.

2. Win out of nowhere - 8/10, cheap combo piece in the command zone. maybe worse. Not sure there is a much more powerful commander as far as an infinite combo piece. Maybe one of the 2-card combo generals like Niv/Curiosity is a 10/10?

3. Prevent players from contributing - 0/10

4. Cause others to play certain cards - Thrasios is a big part of the trend toward Cursed Totem in lower powered decks, IMHO, and definitely for playing Linvala, Keeper of Silence. kenrith, golos and sisay are also guilty here. Feels like a 5/10 to m e.

5. Very difficult to interact with - Yes, see: cursed totem, and 2 CMC, and not requiring haste enabler. 5/10 at least. It's not Flash as the 10/10 poster child, but it's bad. Killing it doesn't even do anything if they make infinite mana before casting it, and most of the time if they have a cost reducer you're going to be getting 1-for-3'd if you kill it.

6. Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or specific rules of commander - Eh, I don't know probably not. Being really cheap and partnering with tons of other commanders is arguable on this front but I'll say 0/10.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you guys think? And how would you rank Golos in comparison?

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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is a card I play a lot that craps on both strategies pretty well. Most of those decks can't win if you stick and protect a Linvala. But that's not like a thing you can guarantee doing. I hate the idea of building more decks around Cursed Totem, that feels toxic to me to be a regular thing in your playgroup :P
So if I build my deck with Cursed Totem in mind, I'm "toxic" and/or my playgroup is...but you can play Linvala "a lot" to "crap on [people's] strategies." Sure thing :)

Thrasios decks are a huge part of the cEDH or play to win decklists because it does something very well. Thrasios is the top general to pick for picking a general just for its color identity. Because of partner, it's essentially a 5 color general but you also get to have the cake (the colors) and eat it too (not play jank like Cromat).

Are you going to ban Thrasios because of that? That's not the only reason why cEDH is very homogenous. If you're going to build to win 100% of your games, all decks will eventually look the same whether you want them to or not.


As for your most recent post, IMO, Golos is much suckier to play against. I never would have thought they'd print a general suckier to play against than Meren so soon, but here we are. I'm not surprised the day would come, but it came so soon and it's not even in a CMDR product. CORE SET, BABY!!!

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Pokken, reread my arguments on Leovold. I started off on the fence but leaning to him needing a ban, then went to actively wanting him banned. I did, in fact, argue in my very first sentence on the topic that he met the same criteria as Braids, which is indeed what he eventually got banned for. I noted that it was possible to build him fairly, but way too easy to break him, and that the manner in which he gets broken is particularly problematic for the format (a quick, consistent, soft lock). My next post, wherein I moved to calling for his banning, I noted that half of the decks I saw with him (over the wide variety of power levels I encounter online) were the most problematic builds, with somewhat problematic builds making up a significant percentage of the other half and the fair builds being in the minority (and going further to not his problematic nature popping up in the 99 in Ydris).

This contrasts pretty significantly with what I've seen from Thrasios. Thrasios IS a highly played commander, but outside of the higher power levels I see fair builds a lot more often than broken builds. What he does is not as inherently broken as what Leovold did, so even taking advantage of his ability with cost reducers or more limited untap effects isn't an automatic game breaker. One wheel was all it took to make a game with Leovold turn to crap. It wasn't just the power level, even if someone top decked a STP and the Leovold player ended up losing, the game still sucked. Thrasios getting activated a few times is strong, but not anywhere close to game breaking. The bottom line is that where Thrasios is most ubiquitous, and most abused, the most abusive things he does are no worse than everything else that's happening at that level. He gets so widely played because 1) his partner ability lets you play 4 color, and he covers the two best colors already, 2) He provides a strong backup plan for combo decks by having strong synergies with cards that are already good at a high level of play, and 3) his worst case scenario is a solid mana dump, and he's cheap enough and non threatening enough on his own in that environment that he tends to be around if you have to end up relying on that. Banning him would make the high power level decks that utilize him weaker, true, but that's only going to be significant in cEDH and high powered casual. The problem with that is that the decks themselves aren't going to go away, they'll just find another commander, because their primary strategy is still the best thing going. The second, and probably more important, problem is that cEDH and the highest power levels of casual subvert the basic idea of the format, which is to not break it. Whatever the boogeyman is at the moment, there's always another waiting in the wings. cEDH will always be broken, and the most high powered end of casual will always be broken. They will always coalesce around the best strategies and the best commanders for those strategies. What Thrasios is doing is, for those formats, is pretty tame by the standards of those formats. I mean, you admit that the reason Thrasios sticks so often there is because you need to save your removal for bigger problems. That right there is proof that Thrasios really isn't the problem, because a card that always sticks around because it isn't worth aiming removal at is never the problem. The problem, the cause behind the lack of deck diversity at the highest levels and the degenerate nature of the decks there, is the style of play itself. All banning Thrasios will do for cEDH and top power casual is somewhat increase deck diversity there. 75% and below is already not negatively impacted by Thrasios when it comes to deck diversity, so banning Thrasios won't do much outside of the top tiers.

Note that half of the Thrasios decks on EDH rec are Thrasios+Tymna competitive and high power casual builds. He's definitely over represented in those meta games, but not throughout the format. Nothing should ever be banned with the intent to bring balance to cEDH or top power casual, because nothing will ever bring balance to those sub formats. Flash getting banned directly addressed the negative play caused by flash in those sub formats, so Thrasios needs to be judged on that rather than his impact on balance, and I don't see what Thrasios does as being problematic at those power levels, at least not in comparison to everything else that happens there.


To engage on the red flags:

1. Extreme consistency - 5-6 out of 10. Remember, the key word here is extreme. I don't think he hits that level. He does need support cards to really go nuts, and even when he gets those its not an auto win. He is, however, consistent, simply by virtue of being 2 mana. and his ability being universally useful as a fallback option. I'd say he's highly consistent when it comes to doing what's on the box, which isn't a problem, and moderately consistent when it comes to doing broken stuff. Moderate consistency on the later earns a 5 or a 6, and I'll bump it to 6 for having his baseline be very consistent and still good.

2. Ubiquity - 7/10. Agreed with you here, with the massive caveat that his ubiquity varies strongly depending on power level. He's probably a 10/10 in cEDH and top power casual, maybe 5-6/10 in 75% but less problematic, and decreasing from there.

3. Restricting others' opportunities - 0/10, Agreed, it doesn't at all.

Low level
1. Resource imbalances - 4/10 there. He's a slightly inefficient mana sink. Coming down early helps, and being always available and easy to recast helps, and his ability isn't terribly inefficient. Those factors are the only reasons he actually gets above 2/10.

2. Win out of nowhere - 6/10. He is a cheap combo piece, but only by the loosest definition. He's a mana sink for infinite mana combos, and he has some strong synergies otherwise. You still need to draw the two card combo to sink mana into him for him to win on the spot, and the things he "combos" with aren't that cheap (wilderness is 4, Seedborn is 5) and don't win on the spot (they put you in a very good position that will be very difficult to overcome in a powerful deck and will win fairly quickly, but that's still not on the spot so there's still more of an opportunity). Still, being cheap and good without comboing makes me rate him 6/10. To get over that he'd need to be in "I played my commander and one other card, gg" or "I played my commander and one other card, enjoy the lock" territory, which he isn't. 6/10 though is the highest rating I'd give for anything below that, so he's still moderately problematic here.

3. Prevent players from contributing - 0/10

4. Cause others to play certain cards - 0/10, because you conveniently cut the second part of that sentence. The red flag (or criteria, whichever we call it) goes on to state that those cards are themselves problematic. Thrasios does promote playing certain cards to answer him, but there are several caveats here that render this a 0/10. First, those cards are not problematic themselves. They are fair hate pieces. While they shut off a few commanders, that's not a problem. They generally don't ruin games of commander, so that they see an increase in play is not a problem. Second, Thrasios is not alone in promoting these cards. You rightly acknowledge Kenrith, Sisay, and Golos as also contributing to this, but there are lots of popular commanders with activated abilities. To really check off this box, a card must be encouraging cards to be ran to counter it mostly on its own, or in conjunction with maybe one or two other cards. What we have here is a whole class of commanders, ranging from broken like Golos to completely fair like Samut, that are encouraging people to run these cards as answers. Lastly, there are actually numerous answers to Thrasios, ranging from spot removal to these more targeted and permanent cards, so you don't actually have to include Linvala to answer Thrasios. Its only at the highest power levels that spot removal becomes an insufficient answer, primarily because spot removal is better spent on bigger threats. Combined, these factors render a 0/10 on this criteria. The highest I could see is 2/10, and that's being generous and based solely on the fact that it does actually promote running certain cards that were previously underplayed.

5. Very difficult to interact with - I'd go with 5/10, but again varying widely based on the meta's power level. In less than 75% I'd say 3/10. It will eat removal and get swept up by sweepers, and a few activations won't be a problem anyway, so he's right into dies to doom blade territory. For 75%, I'd say 4/10. You're more likely to be able to get a decent number of activations out of him if he isn't answered quickly there, so the pressure is on and taking him out as collateral damage in a sweeper is less effective. Higher power levels he's 7-8/10, for the reasons you mention. The window is more narrow to deal with him before he takes over a game due to a combo or strong synergy, and when he's just doing his thing without that you need to save spot removal for combos so its not an effective option. Another thing to keep in mind is that while his low cost means he can easily be cast a second time and reasonably cast a third time if need be, removing Thrasios is always bad for the Thrasios player in a vacuum. The result is always that Thrasios has left the board and now they need to spend more mana to land a 1/3. It doesn't undo his activations, but at 4 mana those activations aren't guaranteed every time you cast him unless you have enough mana to spare, and even then one activation is a relatively small amount of advantage. Compare this to Golos or Wanderer, two commanders provide immediate value from being cast or entering the battlefield. Removing them may be necessary, but the caster will always get something out of having played them (unless Golos is countered) and will stand to gain more the next time the cast them. Things like that which make removal less effective as an answer by mitigating the loss for the controller are not applicable to Thrasios.

6. Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or specific rules of commander - 0/10. Partner as a whole has some minor issues, universal partner especially, but it doesn't interact poorly with the rules of the format. The main issue is that it lets you hit four colors in your deck yet still be able to cast a commander if you don't have all your colors, and to play cheap cmc commanders. Of course, putting WUBRG activated abilities on a commander also accomplishes this


So the highest I see Thrasios getting, when looking at the format as a whole, is 6/10, which he gets on a couple criteria. He's moderately problematic on a few things and not problematic on most. Probably 5/10 overall. Once you narrow the scope to top power casual and cEDH, he rises higher in several categories and is probably a 7/10 there, perhaps an 8/10. Those types of metas are not representative of the format as a whole, and also prone to being broken, so a card that is only problematic there should not be banned unless it is so atrociously problematic there that it is killing those metas, like Flash was, and while I accept the Flash ban I think it should be the floor for what a card getting banned for cEDH considerations should be (that is, unless its at least as much of a problem as Flash was, it shouldn't be banned just to cater to the highest powered variants of the format).


But despite all this, I'm not going to place myself in some sort of never ban Thrasios camp. I'm only taking the position that, as of this moment and his current impact on the format, Thrasios should not be banned. He could very well become more problematic as time goes on. He could start show up in greater and greater numbers in casual games below the highest power levels, and the more problematic things he does could start showing up more often in the decks that run him at 75% and below power levels. Wizards could also continue to print enablers like Wilderness Rec that increase the likelihood of drawing into his strongest interactions by increasing the number of cards that interact strongly with him, and if all this comes to pass he could one day have a strong enough negative impact on a broad enough range of the format to warrant a ban. He's not there yet though, and he isn't really even close.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is a card I play a lot that craps on both strategies pretty well. Most of those decks can't win if you stick and protect a Linvala. But that's not like a thing you can guarantee doing. I hate the idea of building more decks around Cursed Totem, that feels toxic to me to be a regular thing in your playgroup :P
So if I build my deck with Cursed Totem in mind, I'm "toxic" and/or my playgroup is...but you can play Linvala "a lot" to "crap on [people's] strategies." Sure thing :)

Thrasios decks are a huge part of the cEDH or play to win decklists because it does something very well. Thrasios is the top general to pick for picking a general just for its color identity. Because of partner, it's essentially a 5 color general but you also get to have the cake (the colors) and eat it too (not play jank like Cromat).

Are you going to ban Thrasios because of that? That's not the only reason why cEDH is very homogenous. If you're going to build to win 100% of your games, all decks will eventually look the same whether you want them to or not.


As for your most recent post, IMO, Golos is much suckier to play against. I never would have thought they'd print a general suckier to play against than Meren so soon, but here we are. I'm not surprised the day would come, but it came so soon and it's not even in a CMDR product. CORE SET, BABY!!!
I think that, in general, hate creatures are more palatable than hate artifacts to me - it's a sign of a problem in your meta if you're playing Grafdigger's Cage but Scavenging Ooze is less so. That could just be a me being weird thing, but I feel like if you've got to maindeck sideboard cards that do nothing but shut off a particular strategy, it's a warning sign. That's all I've really got to say about it - if you want to start a thread about acceptable hate cards I'm down to participate.

I really do not care about CEDH much at all; it makes up a tiny portion of my games. I think Thrasios is pretty banworthy based on its overall problematic nature.

I obviously agree Golos is horrible :)

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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I think that, in general, hate creatures are more palatable than hate artifacts to me - it's a sign of a problem in your meta if you're playing Grafdigger's Cage but Scavenging Ooze is less so. That could just be a me being weird thing, but I feel like if you've got to maindeck sideboard cards that do nothing but shut off a particular strategy, it's a warning sign. That's all I've really got to say about it - if you want to start a thread about acceptable hate cards I'm down to participate.
That's one heck of a take.
...because let's face it Linvala and ScOoze are sideboard cards too, but are maindeck-able solely on the basis of having P/T and cards like Birthing Pod.

It's hard to grade any of these with an objective 0-10 scale since no reference is being provided. Without a rubric, the number doesn't mean much unless you're assigning 0's or 10's.
High level
1. Extreme consistency - Thrasios is 2 cmc so you can play him turn 2 almost every game. That's not a problem b/c he's got no ETB and does not generate any resource advantage on its own
2. Ubiquity - lots of people play forests and islands together, not a problem
3. Restricting others' opportunities - doesn't lock opponents out
Low level
1. Resource imbalances - resolving this guy generates no card advantage
2. Win out of nowhere - it's not a part of a two card combo like many other generals. it doesn't combo on "accident" with 50 million cards like Ghave
3. Prevent players from contributing - see previous point #3
4. Cause others to play certain cards - Thrasios does not require any specific cards to deal with. It's a 1/1 with no protection
5. Very difficult to interact with - Dies to Doom Blade, right? See previous point #4
6. Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or specific rules of commander - I think partner is a poor mechanic but that's about it.

Seems like you've got a problem with Thrasios decks and deck builders rather than the card itself. And I'm going out on a limb here, but I figure those same players would probably replace it with something just as equally unappetizing to play against over and over.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
That's one heck of a take.
...because let's face it Linvala and ScOoze are sideboard cards too, but are maindeck-able solely on the basis of having P/T and cards like Birthing Pod.
Like I said, I'll dive into that in another thread if you want. It's just my intuitive take on it from playing a lot and building a lot of decks.
umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
Seems like you've got a problem with Thrasios decks and deck builders rather than the card itself. And I'm going out on a limb here, but I figure those same players would probably replace it with something just as equally unappetizing to play against over and over.
Naw. Before Thrasios (&Tymna) the choices for UGx generals were typically not all that high powered or had limitations (e.g. derevi lacking access to black is a pretty big limitation). Prime Speaker Zegana was a pretty common commander peopled played.

Cut out Thrasios and UGx decks have a lot more attack surface. You wind up with severe color limitations, commanders who cost 5 or 6, and generally speaking very few generals with access to ramp, card draw and combo on the same card (basically only 5c commanders at that point).

The field becomes very wide when you cut out Thrasios as the best UGx general. Not all of them are fun to me but you're not going to see people consolidate into Uro as the best UG deck or Tasigur, the Golden Fang or whatever.

Honestly up until partners it was pretty are for there to be unanimity about what commander pairs were the best for certain strategies. I think that's a huge problem with them, especially T&T and their various pairings.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
pokken wrote: ↑1 hour ago
I think that, in general, hate creatures are more palatable than hate artifacts to me - it's a sign of a problem in your meta if you're playing Grafdigger's Cage but Scavenging Ooze is less so. That could just be a me being weird thing, but I feel like if you've got to maindeck sideboard cards that do nothing but shut off a particular strategy, it's a warning sign. That's all I've really got to say about it - if you want to start a thread about acceptable hate cards I'm down to participate.
That's one heck of a take.
...because let's face it Linvala and ScOoze are sideboard cards too, but are maindeck-able solely on the basis of having P/T and cards like Birthing Pod.
Apropos of nothing because it doesn't overly pertain to our merfolk friend, I disagree. Haterocks are more groanworthy than hatebears because people tend to run less artifact specific removal, and less wipes deal with them. I personally try to cover as many bases as I can with my removal suite, but from what I've seen in pickup games that's far from the norm. It baffles me how many games I end up covering the table for removal because everyone is too busy with goldfish decks. Ultimately I think this probably speaks to the fact that people generally are worse at threat assessment than they would like to think, but that's just the way it is. And of course all this being said I've been accused of bringing stax to a casual table for running Thalia, Heretic Cathar before, so there's obviously no universal objective measure of acceptability when it comes to control/stax in our format.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Scavenging Ooze are to my mind decently versatile options that fit in a multitude of builds. In cEDH I can see how you'd cut them for being tight on space, but both are pretty damn versatile in general, so I think calling them sideboard material is fairly narrow.

At any rate, back to our scheduled broadcast.
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

How, the hell, is vandalblast not in every R deck? Nature's claim not in every G? I still don't understand how people not playing UB or mono U or B have trouble with artifacts. Artifacts are powerful at every level of play. Maindeck artifact hate. You'll have targets, and you'll never be sorry to see it.


Anyway, get rid of Thrasios and you can pair Tymna with Kydele. It's absolutely a downgrade, and she's not going to be relevant nearly as often, but you'll still have 4 color no red and Tymna is very strong in her own right. It would lead to a bit more diversity as commanders with fewer colors would be more powerful themselves with the drawback of not accessing all 4 colors. It's definitely a modest improvement for top power casual and cEDH. That's not nearly enough to justify a ban. Contrast that with Leovold, as banning that was a large improvement in the play experience at all tiers, and Golos getting banned would be similar (though not as extreme as Leovold). Or banning flash which was a severe improvement for cEDH and top power casual.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Tymna is a good magic card but really only exceptional in cedh because the lack of sweepers and blockers. The average fat is too high for her in even most high power games. It's tricksy.

In high power decks tymna and kydele becomes a real question. Is tasigur and better Mana worth giving up white? Is derevi good enough to justify skipping black? Is uro or tatyova better for your style? Is chulane?

The reason thrasios is so dang good is he enables so many strategies. He's amazing in draw go, lands, good stuff, hatebears, artifacts and you name it.

Tymna and kydele is pretty niche as a good stuff deck, not even being that good at hatebears (tymna and sidar are likely better). It has zero land synergy and a 4 cmc Mana dork that requires haste is awful and only combos with pretty bad cards (e.g. staff of Dom).

Tymna kraum is the naturally strongest combination but it is really awkward and doesn't really support that many strategies

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

That's kind of the issue. Tymna is good in cEDH and top power casual and Kydele gets you her colors and is otherwise irrelevant. Thrasios' main problem is it does what Kydele does (provide UG) while also being very good. The best way for me to sum up Thrasios is that the reasons he is so widely played at the top levels are not reasons cards get banned in edh. Everything he does is acceptable at those power levels, and aren't close to the most problematic things happening there. He's just generically really good.

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Post by benjameenbear » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I was surprised to see this guy not have a dedicated thread, and was inspired by being reminded of just how obnoxious he is.



He single-handedly ruins higher powered commander by being the de facto best, and pairs with the second best (Tymna the Weaver).

(I do think Tymna is a stronger commander, but only when paired with blue, so ultimately Thrasios is the individually bigger problem).

I don't think you can even make a fair Thrasios casual deck; he's so absurdly powerful on his own that he dominates everything in his weight class. There're plenty of other options for merfolk tribal, and his other best casual use of Lands has several powerful UGx options.

Simply put I don't think he brings anything positive to the format and should probably be banned - and realistically should have been banned immediately.

Certainly interested in counterpoints there but I did some thinking back on it and basically every time I've seen a Thrasios deck it's the center of the game.

His offenses:
* Very cheap
* Parnters with other broken commanders
* Colorless infinite mana sink
* Land ramp and card draw
* Access to 4 colors and two of the best colors

He basically does every powerful thing you can do in the command zone all in a 2 mana package with access to up to 4 colors. He's straight up broken on his own without partnering, and gets far more egregious when partnered.

He makes up nearly 50% of the meta in CEDH but is starting to see a lot more casual to high powered play as well.

As far as representation goes, there are 3280 thrasios decks on EDHRec making him rank in the top 5 most played commanders with such luminaries as Atraxa, Edgar, Muldrotha, and Golos (one of which has a banning thread that has more yea's than nays already).



Another issue I forgot is that Thrasios is the best at too many things. This chews up space for other commanders, especially in the upper power levels. He's the best lands commander, the best mana dork commander, and the best artifact ramp commander. That's lame to put in one package.
Try taking any Lands deck(ex. Tatyova, Benthic Druid) and replacing the commander with Thrasios + whomever (or even just Thrasios)
Try taking any artifact build and replacing it with Thrasios+Akiri or Silas
Try taking any dork heavy UG deck and subbing in Thrasios as the commander.
Almost always better - definitely better once you sub 5-ish cards for Thrasios synergies.


Does anyone not think Thrasios is a blight? :P
An interesting topic that I'll bite on.

As an avid cEDH player and theory-crafter, I agree that Thrasios + Tymna decks WERE ubiquitous to the point of being obnoxious. This was particularly so during the Flash Hulk era when that deck could win on the stack with the best spells in all of MTG, period. Very pleased that Flash got banned, personally, and I don't sympathize with anyone who thinks Flash should have been allowed. But that's a separate thread.

The way I see your argument boils down to this (and I haven't read all of the responses to this thread, so I may be missing some clarification and elaboration from you on your main points), and I will make my post according to these arguments:
  • Thrasios is a compact and efficient Commander card that, via his low CMC and activated ability, helps to lubricate any cEDH deck to disproportionate amounts of Card Advantage and Mana Advantage when built around, protected, and synergized with in comparison to any other Commander pairing that involves base Simic colors.
  • Because of this efficiency and disproportionate success of its pilot relative to any typical Commander pod, any Thrasios pilot has an inherent advantage over the rest of the table that leads to more unfair, feel-bads wins that cannot be reasonably contained by current cEDH strategies or High Powered strategies and therefore doesn't bring anything good to the format as a whole.
Additionally, I will also be evaluating your arguments for predominantly cEDH games and the meta as I currently understand it (I will be using this excellent Meta-Game report by HoffOccultist as a baseline).

First, it's important to note that the meta HAS shifted. In the early parts of Hoff's report, you can see that most cEDH games now extend into the T4-T5 range most commonly, with a good portion of games ending past T7. This is important because it stresses the idea that decks that are built well and include higher densities of Card and Mana Advantage cards, synergies, and/or combos are the more likely candidates to winning a game at any given point. After all, it is a 4 player pod, and you simply can't answer every single one of your opponent's plays with cards of your own. Therefore, it is likely that decks that are built to capitalize on strong Card and/or Mana Advantage Commanders will be more successful in this environment where they possibly weren't before.

This is a point in your favor about Thrasios' design, in my opinion. Thrasios can come down early OR for not a significant mana investment at any given turn and allows its pilot to build an individually powerful deck regardless of Commander pairing. Any cards that synergize with Thrasios will give that pilot more opportunities to leverage Thrasios' activated ability.

As we scroll down the meta-report to about page 6 or 7 though, we see an interesting trend, particularly on page 7. If you look at the relative popularity of specific deccklists, you can see that Thrasios + Tymna decklists claim roughly 60/500 slots (VERY rough estimation) for recorded games. That's a pretty decent representation for a specific Commander, but I don't think it's as egregious as you imply it to be. The sum total of any deck containing Thrasios as a Commander jumps to about 100/500 slots (again, VERY rough estimation), but I don't think 20% is dominating nor egregious.

But, if we look at the Excel spreadsheet on page 7, we see that Thrasios + Tymna decks only claim a 23/211 total games won. That's a pretty decent 10%, but certainly nothing to be groaning about.

Based on this data, and while I agree that Thrasios' design left something to be desired, I conclude that Thrasios + Tymna decks are fair and are in fact accounted for in the general meta.

If your claims are to be accurate and worth discussing a ban for Thrasios, I think it would be reasonable to consider banning Thrasios as a Commander if his meta share were over 30% and his win percentage accounted for a 30% win rate as well. I admit that I could be interpreting the data incorrectly, but overall, my verdict is that Thrasios is fine. Anecdotally, the Kaalia list that my wife pilots 100% of the time makes any Commander with an activated ability a liability for its pilot, so my opinion is further influenced by my own subjective experience.

Is he an extremely powerful Commander? Absolutely. Does he push out any other cEDH Commander pairing for the Sans-Red color identity? Probably. Could you argue that he's the best Commander for several different strategies? Of course. But I think this is a reflection of what the Commander format is: an avenue of self-expression. And banning a card that could limit this kind of self-expression and doesn't win disproportionately is worth a ban.

Tl;dr
Based on some recent and locally collected data from a user I trust, Thrasios is a non-bannable card that certainly leaves questions about why it sits at 2 CMC instead of 3 CMC, given its suite of stats and activated ability.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I think we disagree on two points, 1) what is acceptable at the upper power levels, and 2) what gets and ought to get cards banned in EDH. And that's fine. Playing against Thrasios is not the same as playing against the acute bomb commanders (e.g. Animar) because of his extreme flexibility and low cost - his design is such that you do not really need to build around him, he just synergizes strongly with UG Good Cards (and interestingly also with Artifact shenanigans:P).
onering wrote:
3 years ago
He's just generically really good.
He's just generically so good that he drives down diversity in many areas of the format, not just competitive, and as the format continues to evolve he will continue to do so even more. He's the strongest choice for too many builds.

The idea you seem to be putting forth is that there's always going to be a best goodstuff commander, but I think that is really a flawed way to look at it.

Thrasios and Golos are two sides of the same coin: Hyper-flexible goodstuff commanders that homogenize gameplay by their very existence.
benjameenbear wrote:
3 years ago
But, if we look at the Excel spreadsheet on page 7, we see that Thrasios + Tymna decks only claim a 23/211 total games won. That's a pretty decent 10%, but certainly nothing to be groaning about.
I read this and my conclusion from playing medium green is that those results are too early to generalize from and based on growing pains as people try to find the right configuration and incorrectly assess the new meta. I always feel in the driver's seat with medium green - other decks always have to beat me. Every game is archenemy.

I'd love to revisit this in 6 months when the meta stabilizes - my opinion is that Thrasios decks will be pushing 30-40% win rates by the time the meta settles and people stop jamming nonsense in response to an open field. I haven't even been playing consult in my deck and I still win, just seedborn muse and Freed from the Real, with Timetwister and Finale of Devastation as the wincons :P

I do think it's really interesting data though and I sincerely appreciate your analysis and perspective. I'd be interested to see what you think of playing against those decks if you are running into them as well.

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Post by benjameenbear » 3 years ago

You bring a fair point that the data is fairly fresh, particularly after the meta shakeup. I certainly think that it would be interesting to see the data at the end of the year when the meta has stabilized some more.

I truly see the meta being divided up between 4 primary decks and the rest taking up metashare. My big 4, after watching YouTube games and playing against them are Consultation Kess, Gitrog, Elsha, and Thrasios & Tymna (T&T) decks. These decks, in my opinion, have the cleanest setup for their wins, grind Card Advantage and/or Mana Advantage from the Command Zone the best, and have core strategies that are inherently powerful. Maybe Urza will become a meta player, but I doubt it. His activated ability is not dependable Card Advantage since the Card Cast is randomized during the ability's resolution. I also think each of these 4 decks have the best chances of running strategies that can counter the other 3 the most efficiently and will therefore be meta since they can also incidentally cover other decklists. It's a great time to be a Kaalia player, lol.

Personally, of the cEDH lists represented in my post, I've played against Gitrog the most. I'm running a Consultation Reanimator Bolas variant currently and Breya combo as my mainstay cEDH decks and they do quite well. I also have a cEDH list for Kaalia, but my wife often tweaks it to her taste in paper.

Of those 4, I think Gitrog simply attacks the game from such a unique angle that it's harder to manage it along with the rest of your opponents, so it almost always draws my attention first. Great list and brings a great dimension to any game it features in. And in the games where I have played against T&T, most people are aware of Thrasios' power level and don't let him sit too long.

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
He's just generically really good.
He's just generically so good that he drives down diversity in many areas of the format, not just competitive,
Except that isn't true. Thrasios is by far most overrepresented at the cEDH and top power casual levels, and Ben just showed that even THERE he isn't commanding a portion of the field so large that it would get a deck banned in modern. That data shows that in the segment of the format he is most played in, he occupies what can only be described as a healthy portion of the meta game (because that's exactly how it would be described if this were modern or standard). The lower power you go, the less he's played, and when he is played you see a greater diversity in partner pairings. He simply is not, at this moment, reducing deck diversity across the format, and even where he is most represented it's not at problematic levels. And there is a clear reason for this, that has been discussed ad nauseum in this thread: while he may be, on paper, the best choice in terms of power for a number of archetypes, that's not how most people decide what to play. That is only the overriding concern at the very top power levels. Once you go to 75 percent and below, you are already making the decision to NOT min max, so ditching the sweet thematic commander that does cool stuff for the frankly boring but sensible Thrasios is something that a huge portion of the player base turns up their noses at.

and as the format continues to evolve he will continue to do so even more. He's the strongest choice for too many builds.


Banning cards for problems that don't currently exist but may exist at some point in the undefined future is probably the worst reason to ban a card. Ok, let's assume your prediction is correct. Let's assume that the way the community engages with the format fundamentally changes and the cEDH min max mentality goes from being a small but significant minority to the predominant way the format is played. Then, further, we must also assume that this causes Thrasios to push out other commanders across a wide variety of archetypes by virtue of being the best option, so it's share of the metagame becomes higher than it currently is in cEDH (because even there it's not the doomsday scenario yet). I'd argue that for the format as a whole the metagame share doesn't have to be quite as high to be problematic as it would have to be in cEDH because cEDH will always have a smaller amount of viable decks and thus everything will have a somewhat inflated meta share by virtue of the pie needing to be sliced fewer times so to speak. Well, when that happens, when what you fear actually comes to pass, that's when you ban Thrasios. You ban because a card is killing diversity, not because it may kill diversity.
The idea you seem to be putting forth is that there's always going to be a best goodstuff commander, but I think that is really a flawed way to look at it.
Of course that's a flawed way of looking at it, which is why I didn't leave it at that, and the context you missed is important. There is always going to be a best good stuff commander, or a best commander for competitive play, so that alone is not relevant to consider something for banning. It doesn't make the card problematic. There's a best spot removal spell, a best counter spell, a best wrath. Even when you take into account ways a card actually is problematic, it's nature as the best at something really only serves as the cherry on top, a thing that gives it a little nudge over the edge if it's a borderline case. I'm not dismissing any argument against Thrasios because there's always going to be a best good stuff commander, I'm dismissing being the best option as a commander for a given archetype, or even multiple archetypes, as particularly relevant to the conversation. If the card isn't ban worthy without being the best option, it's very unlikely that being the best option will put it over the top. It's an argument that shouldn't be considered unless the person considering it is already leaning towards banning the card and just needs that one extra push. You give it far too much prominence in your arguments for banning Thrasios, which belies the weakness of the argument for banning him on the relevant merits.
Thrasios and Golos are two sides of the same coin: Hyper-flexible goodstuff commanders that homogenize gameplay by their very existence.
But they really aren't. They are both strong, and they are both flexible good stuff commanders that can head up a vast variety of decks,, and they are both CA Mana sinks, but that's where the similarities end. Let's look at the differences:

Thrasios generally serves as a backup plan that provides access to colors and then a reasonable and easily accessed Mana sink for when you can't push your main plan. Golos serves as the main plan, as in most levels of play pumping the Mana into his ability for free spells is the best thing to do. Golos thus homogenizes gameplay to an extreme extent as the gameplan is play Golos, activate Golos, maybe stack you library to abuse Golos. Thrasios does not great nearly the same kind of homogenized gameplay. What you do with him depends on how the game is unfolding, and what other options you have. Of course, at the highest levels Thrasios decks will feel more homogenized, but that is a byproduct more of decks at the highest power levels being designed to win efficiently, which necessarily homogenizes their game play.

Golos is flashy, Thrasios isn't. This is important because outside of the highest power levels flashy commanders are more attractive to players than boring ones. Golos is a cool robot, he tutors up any land to the battlefield, and he's got a big flashy activated ability that lets you cast three random cards from the top of your deck. His design looks really fun on paper. Who doesn't want to sink a rainbow of Mana into a robot and see what their deck pops out? It's got big play potential, it's got randomness, it's splashy and fun and BIG! Thrasios is boring. He's a little guy that wants you to pump in 4 Mana to get coiling oracle's etb. Yes, that's strong, but it's deceptively so. It's not splashy, it's not a big play, it's not the sort of thing that gets people excited. It gets you good value over time, and the investment is small enough that the payoff doesn't have to be that big. This is very attractive at the highest power levels, but less so elsewhere. Being really good in a really boring way has a long history of keeping cards from becoming problems in this format, while objectively far less powerful cards that are splashy get out of hand and eat bans.

Golos must be dealt with immediately or takes over the game at most power levels (the highest power levels are most likely to be able to win before the Golos player can leverage the fruits of the first couple activations), while Thrasios can get a few activations in at most power levels and have just a marginal impact. That means that games with Golos are invariably centralized around Golos, but games with Thrasios are not invariably centralized around Thrasios. The answer to Golos is to keep him off the field, preferably prevent it from being cast, and kill the player quickly. At most power levels Thrasios doesn't do that, and popping Thrasios a couple times early can keep him in check.

These two cards have too great a difference in functionality to be equivalent. Their impact on games is too divergent.

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